Francaise Dinner 2019

Also this past spring, was the 2019 Francaise dinner. Doug and I were supposed to go and Janine and Ron were going to babysit for us… and then Elena got sick and I didn’t want to expose them to germs (especially given how Baby Plague 2018 turned out). So instead Janine went as my guest and Doug stayed home with the kiddo. I was pretty wiped out and Janine has an early bedtime so we didn’t stay super late and I don’t have a ton of pictures, but we did have a lovely dinner at our table with Mike and Gloria. AND (even though I was tired), I felt 100% better than last year when I was recovering from Baby Plague 2018 still and felt awful. So bonus.

The dinner was at Gadbys Tavern this year and the tavern advertised it so there was a huge turnout! I love that venue but it was pretty tight and hard to get around too much to socialize as much as I would have liked.









Janine and I both wore chemise gowns (I was basically looking for something easy to wear and to change in and out of!). I had a feather, but it went askew. Necklace by Gloria/ In the Long Run Designs.

The New Kit-Cat Club photo shoot

So Mike & Gloria of In the Long Run Designs have been doing this really cool project called the new Kit-Cat Portraits. When they were at the National Portrait Gallery in London, they saw a room of portraits of men (of course) who were members of the Kit-Cat Club, which was an 18th literary/dining club. The portraits have an interesting aspect ratio, longer than a typical head/shoulders portrait, but shorter than half-length. And all the poses are different, and some of the poses worked in an object relevant to that man’s work.

Their project used that same portrait size, with varied portraits, and a similar brownish background. BUT their portraits (besides being photography not painting), featured women (yay!) and they decided to use the late 18th century rather than the early. (Our costuming group has a lot of costumes of that era, less so early 18th century.)

You can read more in their own words on their blog (and see a pic of the original portraits): https://inthelongrun.wordpress.com/2019/03/09/the-new-kit-cat-portraits-series-1/

Mike & Gloria have experimented with setting a temp studio up in their house and it works really well, especially for a short person like me!

They booked people for a specific time period, that allowed for getting ready, shooting some pics for fun, and then working on the Kit-Cat pic. They were super organized and it was fun seeing them experiment with different lighting set-ups. And it gave me some practice posing, since it’s something I still struggle with! Though sessions like this are helping me get more comfortable.

Here’s what the set-up looked like:







Selfie!



So, what was I wearing? I made a version of the famous KCI dress a number of years ago and it remains one of my favs. I used a sale red/white striped dupioni (not period accurate, but whatever, it’s silk and low slub). I wore antique earrings and a necklace and fan made by Gloria! The matching bracelets I think were from the Downton Abbey collection.



The Earrings:



Here is the Kit-Cat club image - and then I’ll finish with the other images they took.















(This is the original dress from the KCI collection:)

Georgian Picnic

Gloria and I tried to host a Georgian picnic at the start of June - “tried to” because the weather did not cooperate with us. We had planned to have it on the grounds of Montpelier Mansion in Laurel - and ended up having to move it indoors because of the forecast. This led to a mini-panic since we’d anticipated a small number of people and had thought to have it at one of our houses, but we had a ton of RSVPs on Facebook. Our place wasn’t really suited to guests what with the baby situation and with the number of people, honestly a house wasn’t going to work. So we thought maybe we’d have to try the following weekend - but Janine stepped up to the rescue. She has a terrific party room in her apartment building in Alexandria. Having it a little further south caused some of our more northern guests not to be able to come - but rescheduling it would have also caused some attrition, so we just went with it.

Despite all that, it worked out really well, and we had a lovely array of snack foods and we were able to get a group pic outside before the weather moved in. Many of us wore chemise dresses and Gloria & Mike took some lovely photos of people at the party. Since we had a ton of room, we also had non-costumed spouses and babies and at least one costumed baby! A good time was had by all!

Group photo by In the Long Run Designs:

Fort Fred 2018

I'm super behind on posts, so here come a bunch of them.

We actually made it to Fort Fred this year and it was neither too hot (last year) nor too cold. Nor was I pregnant! So I wore a costume - an older one, that I hadn’t worn in ages - and I don’t think my stays were quite tight enough so I had gapping issues, but, well, I got dressed in a parking lot, so…. As always it was awesome seeing friends. And we got to bring Elena!



Pics by In The Long Run Designs: inthelongrun.wordpress.com/









My pics:





I got this one of Ashley taking a “ride.”



Shoe shot! Rough terrain, and also not super warm, so I wore sneakers - and jeans. I mean, I did change in a parking lot.



Pic by In The Long Run Designs: inthelongrun.wordpress.com/



Rebecca also brought her baby - who is 2 months younger than mine. We were two of the four pregnant ladies at last year’s pumpkin tea.





Also for the first time we bought pastries from the bakery there - the things are cooked in a big open oven. We got ham and cheese croissants that were so good, I have no pictures, we gobbled them down.